The San Francisco congresswoman oversaw the Democrats’ big victory in this year’s midterms and then fought off naysayers in her own party to secure the speakership. She’ll reclaim the gavel next week.

PG&E

This year’s wildfires raised the stakes for the utility giant, which is facing lawsuits from homeowners who blame it for sparking the infernos, a precipitous drop in its stock price, and the possibility that state regulators could split it up.

Elon Musk

The idiosyncratic tech mogul reached new milestones, with SpaceX becoming the first private company to put an object (Musk’s red Tesla roadster) into orbit around the sun. But he was forced to step down as Tesla chair after a plan to take the company private blew up.